Prince Pondicherry

Prince Pondicherry is a character in Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. In the third chapter, Willy Wonka makes him a chocolate palace in India that melts because of a hot sun. He is absent from the 1971 musical version.

The Prince in the 2005 film

The Prince makes a brief appearance in Tim Burton's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", where he is played by Nitin Ganatra. He tells Wonka to build him a palace entirely out of chocolate, and Wonka assures him that it will be done. Having completed the palace, Wonka warns him to start eating it straight away, before the chocolate starts to melt. Clearly not a practical man, Prince Pondicherry ignores the advice and takes up residence in the palace.

Soon after, during a very hot day, Prince Pondicherry is being fed chocolate by his princess when drops of melting chocolate begin to fall on the prince's head. The palace begins to fall apart, and the Prince and his wife (played by Shelley Conn) escape covered in chocolate, looking on at the melted palace. He then sends Mr. Wonka an urgent telegram requesting a new palace, but Wonka has problems concerning spies in his factory and therefore cannot come.

This version follows closely the version told in the book, but adds the Princess (who was never mentioned in the novel) and states that the Prince, who had been dozing, found himself immersed in a lake-sized pool of melted chocolate.

The real Pondicherry

Pondicherry is a city and Union territory located on the southeastern coast of India, surrounded by the state of Tamil Nadu, near Madras. In contrast to the rest of India — which was mostly British territory prior to independence — Pondicherry was a French colony until 1954, when newly independent India annexed it (a step confirmed by treaty in 1962). Contrary to Dahl's novel, a royal family had not existed there for many centuries.